Driving Top Gear's greatest cars: Lexus LFA

Jeremy Clarkson: 'If someone were to offer me the choice of any car that had ever been made ever, I would like a dark blue Lexus LFA'

19 April 2016 • 7:30am

In the first of a new series in which we drive some of Top Gear's most highly-rated cars, Andrew Frankel revisits the awesome Lexus LFA

“If someone were to offer me the choice of any car that had ever been made ever, I would like a dark blue Lexus LFA.”

The words belong to Jeremy Clarkson, and whether you agree with them or not, there can surely be no disputing the fact the car they describe was of the most extraordinary creations ever to take to the public road.

We’ll get to the car itself very shortly, but for now perhaps the most remarkable thing about the LFA was not what it was, but where it came from. It was a Lexus, which meant it was a Toyota, brought to you by the same people whose other work included the Corolla, Carina and Camry. True, Toyota had built a number of decent sports cars in the past, but Lexus was so middle of the road Alan Partridge drove one. A 200mph supercar? We’d not been more surprised since Julie Andrews took her clothes off in S.O.B.

In series 19 of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson raced Hammond and May to the Mexican border in a bright yellow LFA Credit:
BBC Worldwide Ltd

So how good could such a car conceived in that environment really be? Better than any of us could imagine. News of its gestation did not augur well: it took nearly a decade to progress from interesting idea to production reality, and when it did appear its shape was more brutal than beautiful. Yes, it was made largely from carbon fibre and its 560bhp, 4.8-litre V10 engine sounded promising, but while waiting, the game appeared to have moved on. As an example, it came to market at the same time as the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, a car developed by Porsche’s blue blooded Motorsport department. Like the LFA, just 500 would be built, but the Porsche not only had the badge and pedigree, it was more powerful, accelerated faster and cost almost exactly half the price.

When new, the LFA cost £345,000

But if ever a car’s on paper specification served more to obscure than enlighten, it was the LFA’s. The raw numbers revealed nothing of the sense of occasion that came as you approached this exquisitely constructed, hand-built masterpiece. They offered no insight into a cabin that blended form and function so enticing and exciting you’d sit, literally quivering in anticipation of what was to come. And then there was the noise: I could spend the rest of this article failing to do justice to its hauntingly beautiful offbeat wail. But if you heard it just once, that memory would live with you forever.

The LFA featured in Top Gear helped Clarkson get to the Mexican border before his colleaguesCredit:
BBC Worldwide Ltd

And it was as good to drive as it sounded, perhaps even better. Indeed it was one of just a handful of cars that broke the rule that says cars designed for the road are as rubbish on the track as track cars are on the road. Laws apparently immutable to others simply did not apply to the LFA. On the road it was sufficiently quiet, comfortable and spacious to do a passable impression of a long distance tourer – yet on the track it broke the record for the fastest lap of the Nurburgring for a standard, globally homologated road car. Even now, in this era of 1,000hp hypercars and on a list that contains pure racing cars modified only enough to make them technically road legal, only seven cars have beaten its time.

The LFA's interior is beautifully built and looks superb

The LFA, then, was a freak, a car like McLaren F1 made with no apparent regard for cost, just to be the best it could be. Lexus is rumoured to have lost thousands on each so it’s no surprise no replacement was commissioned. And while that might seem sad, it means its reputation never ran the risk of being sullied by some successor built to return a profit.

In the end Clarkson called it ‘the best car I have ever driven’. For me it was always the Ferrari F40 until the LaFerrari came along, but the LFA is in that league, a car better than the sum of its incredible parts, better you sense, even than its creators intended it to be. A landmark, in other words, whose like we will not see again.

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